Meat Industry Unhappy About Limits On Antibiotics

The Washington Post:

KANSAS CITY, MO. - For decades, factory farms have used antibiotics even in healthy animals to promote faster growth and prevent diseases that could sicken livestock held in confined quarters.

The benefit: cheaper, more plentiful meat for consumers.

But a firestorm has erupted over a federal proposal recommending antibiotics only when animals are actually sick.

Medical and public health experts in recent years say overuse and misuse of antibiotics pose a serious public health threat by creating new strains of bacteria that are difficult to treat - both in animals and humans.

Read the whole story

Comments

[angrypatriot22]

01:52 PM on 11/04/2010

"The guidance's language is vague, farmers say, and it's unknown how much use of antibiotics would be allowed. They also don't account for what could be a costly increase in meat prices, they say."

Are you threatening an increase in price because new BIG GUBMINT regulations will cut into your obscene profits at the expense of our health? We know how you treat your farmers. (I'm talking to you IBP and Tyson)!

[luziannagirl]

10:30 AM on 11/05/2010

Hey better be careful angrypat. Certain agribusiness giants now have armies of investigators prowling the country stomping out the opposition.

[angrypatriot22]

01:31 PM on 11/04/2010

"A healthier pig results in better quality meat and safer meat," Hill said.
-in reference to the use of antibiotics in animals.

The antibiotics only make a healthier pig when they're subjected to such dispicable treatment knee deep in their own $#*&

[angrypatriot22]

01:01 PM on 11/04/2010

"But the meat industry argues that the draft guidelines from the Food and Drug Administration are premature. It says there is not enough evidence to show a clear link between the use of antibiotics in livestock and health problems in humans."

Yeah, well there's not enough evidence to show there ISN'T a clear link between them either. So, better safe than sorry. Get with the program or kill your industry and the rest of us in the name of corporate greed. The frequency of implementing programs and the use of technologies we've yet to gain a full understanding of SICKENS ME!

[luziannagirl]

09:40 AM on 11/04/2010

The meat industry's "maximum profit at any cost" attitude toward their own customers and the American people is exactly why my family and I have for years now, drastically minimized our consumption of all factory-farmed and/or and mass-produced, mass-marketed meat items.

We stock our freezer with wild game, fish, and seafood we harvested ourselves, trade or buy from friends and family who raise livestock and chickens, frequent the local farmers' market weekly or more, shop at health/whole food stores (both local and chain) and buy locally produced items we have confidence in, whenever we can.

We are not fanatical about never consuming anything else---but we reserve those instances for emergencies, travel and special occasions where we didn't choose or prepare the menu.

It's been years since I bought a package of regular mass-produced ground beef, and may well not ever buy one again.

[squiems]

12:38 PM on 11/22/2010

that's great, but you have to understand that your position is unusual, and the vast majority of americans do not have the opportunities for good meat that you do.

Also, be warned; statistically it is far more dangerous to eat wild game than mass-produced meat.

[vetxcl]

01:27 AM on 11/04/2010

and people who buy this stuff (mass produced meat) should be unhappy as well.

[SweetJudith]

01:18 PM on 11/03/2010

humanemyth.org

Go Vegan!

[Jim Shaffer]

09:27 AM on 11/03/2010

Let's see public health issue or economic expediency, judging on our governments record here of late I think we know who'll win in the end.

[SpoonPlayer]

12:15 AM on 11/03/2010

Last year my nephew almost died of a MRSA ST-398 infection - a strain of MRSA that jumped the species barrier from pigs and arose due to antibiotic overuse in pork production.

We need to stop *encouraging* meat producers to reduce the number of antibiotics they use and start *legislating* the change instead.

I am a 20-year vegan, my nephew and his family eat meat. Even so, being vegan doesn't insulate me (or anyone) from the risks posed by these diseases. Once the infection crosses the species barrier and is transmitted freely among humans (as is the case with MRSA ST-398) it doesn't matter what you eat or if you never see a pig in your life.

I encourage everyone to read some of articles in the series that the NY Times published about MRSA and pork:
http://www­.nytimes.c­om/2009/03­/12/opinio­n/12kristo­f.html?_r=­1&scp=1&sq­=Kristof%2­0MRSA&st=c­se

[luziannagirl]

09:50 AM on 11/04/2010

My aunt nearly died of a hospital-bourne multiple drug-resistant staph infection, too, spoonp. It entered her bloodstream after an outpatient angioplasty, and complications involving misdiagnosis, poor follow-up care by the docs, multiple toxic drug interactions, and drug side effects caused massive bleeding on her brain. She went into a coma, spent months in rehab, and took years to regain nearly all mental and physical function. She refused to sue for some reason (basically just a nice person who hates conflict), and ended up actually paying her part of massive medical bills.

This MRSA infection has never really gone away, either. After popping her Achilles' tendon a few years ago and undergoing an operation to re-attach it, she nearly lost her foot to the ensuing MRSA infection.

The docs now say she's probably a "Typhoid Mary" for MRSA. Now they view HER as the problem, when it was the pharmaceutical/medical/meat industry's irresponsible practices that caused her to acquire the infection in the first place.

[Subsoil73]

01:15 PM on 11/02/2010

Why is everyone so willing to believe that antibiotic resitance in HUMANS is due to antibiotic misuse in livestock rather than misuse in HUMANS. How many people in this country take perscription antibiotics for sinus infections and other minor ailments and after two days feel better and stop taking the pills rather than taking the full bottle?

Agricultural producers want to make money and they do it by providing their fellow citizens the safest food supply in the world at the lowest price possible. Antibiotics aren't cheap and therefore aren't wasted on animals that don't need it.

Some people need to get off of the HSUS/PETA propaganda sites and actually visit a livestock operation, feedlot, or packing facility before making misguided judgements about an industry.

[1smartcanerican]

03:43 PM on 11/02/2010

The safest food supply? Really? Seems to me that there have been many deaths and hundreds sickened eating our safe food supply over the last decade, and far longer I'm sure.

Since I don't wish to ingest antibiotics through animal sources, I have stopped eating animals unless I splurge on organic, grass fed beef/buffalo/chicken. Thus, these agricultural producers are not making any money off me since I disagree with how they create food for human consumption.

[vetxcl]

01:33 AM on 11/04/2010

what's so safe if they have to pump them up with antibiotics? just think if these people were in charge of public schools. ( no wait. bad example, that's messed up too.)

[Subsoil73]

09:46 AM on 11/05/2010

Well - I'll assume when you say "many" you mean more than 5 but less than 100 and I'll assume when you say hundreds you mean 500. So out of around 300 million people and over a 10 year period only 50 people die and only 500 get diarrhea. Those are pretty good odds and reflective of a pretty safe products. Plus, how many of these deaths and illness could have been prevented by proper cooking.

Remember, e-coli in meat can be killed on the stove. If e-coli is on your spinach, there's not much the consumer can do.

[roseau]

09:03 PM on 11/02/2010

In fact, antibiotics are quite inexpensive on an industrial scale. I love meat as much as the next person, but I've been following this issue for a decade - since back when Holland banned antibiotic use for non-sick animals. They have had tremendous success reducing persistent e-coli and salmonella, as well as reducing the amount of drug-resistant superbugs reaching human populations through animal to human as well as water sources. If you think that disease does not reach you through the industrial food chain, you are dreaming.

[Subsoil73]

09:50 AM on 11/05/2010

And if you think that human mis-using, over-using, or not taking full dosage of antibiotics is not a bigger problem, you are also dreaming and looking for a scapegoat in the livestock industry.

[Weaziller]

09:08 AM on 11/02/2010

It's really hard to feel bad for these guys. So I don't. I'm not sorry it's harder for them to treat their cattle horribly and cause antibiotic resistant superviruses just to save a few bucks. I'm glad people are wising up to what they put in their bodies.

[dreamdeffered]

01:26 AM on 11/02/2010

Meat industry likes threatening public health and can't see past their own pockets? Screw em. Stop eating meat. Organic fruits and vegs only, vegan pasta, etc. And buy no leather goods of any kind. Really addicted to meat? Raise your own chickens, without drugging them.

[gfirmin57]

10:25 PM on 11/01/2010

What needs to be limited is the misery these animals are subjected to.

[dreamdeffered]

01:27 AM on 11/02/2010

Not limited, but eliminated. Ever had a pet? Animals do have emotions.

[gfirmin57]

07:31 AM on 11/02/2010

I agree.

[vetxcl]

01:35 AM on 11/04/2010

happy cattle make happy meat.

[I3addog]

08:57 PM on 11/01/2010

I am soooooo happy I'm off that wagon train. I only buy locally raised grass fed beef by the half and I save a ton of money doing it.

[luziannagirl]

10:02 AM on 11/04/2010

Good for you, dog.

If you know how to dress, clean and cook grass fed beef and make it taste good, then you know how to cook venison. The taste is identical. You should try it sometime. Deer is what's for dinner here at least once a week. We harvest legally off our own land which we and adjacent landowners carefully manage for the health of the wild herd. I would much rather eat a deer which up to the point of harvest has led an unfettered, unfenced life, than meat from a steer which led a miserable life in a factory feedlot and slaughterhouse environment.

[I3addog]

10:07 AM on 11/04/2010

Hey, I have a freezer full of Venison but we can only harvest so many and it doesn't get us through the year so I still have to buy beef but good advice for others who might be reading :)

[uncc49er]

07:04 PM on 11/01/2010

As long as millions of people eat fast food everyday, there will be nasty and unethical farm factories. They are big businesses, they don't see poor cows on papers, all they see is number, they care about numbers, they have to make more profit everyday. Consumer has to be more educated to change his or her eating habit, and it won't be till then that the meat industry will start to change also.

[Pandoras Folly]

06:02 PM on 11/01/2010

ther are only three things in politics: haves, haves nots, and the labels the haves use to manipulate the have nots.

[luziannagirl]

10:03 AM on 11/04/2010

I wish I could remember that line, PF.